Of power, corruption and public interest

Honourable folks, when the Public Appointments Committee (PAC) of Parliament asked the outgoing Ombudsman Martha Chizuma if she was not afraid to take up the post of Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) Director General, she boldly responded “I’m a born again Christian and God protects me”.

As a reinvigorated follower of Christ, Chizuma was guided by her faith throughout her engagement with PAC but as we all know—waiting on God to answer our prayers is surely one of the hardest things for mankind to experience.

This is the reason why former president Bingu wa Mutharika and Grace Obama Chiumia—an ex-DPP Cabinet minister—defied the odds and once ‘answered’ priestly prayers on critical challenges that faced millions of Malawians when the party was in power.

On May 26 2011, Mutharika (may his soul rest in peace) stunned Malawians when he ‘answered’ an opening prayer for a Mzuzu University graduation ceremony which had tackled the plight of Malawi’s tertiary education, including the then academic freedom saga that triggered a standoff between the government and the University of Malawi (Unima) lecturers and students, leading to the prolonged closure of Chancellor College and the Malawi Polytechnic.

As Chancellor of the university, Mutharika presided over the graduation in Mzuzu at the peak of his regime’s unpopularity due to its growing intolerance to criticism and autocratic tendencies.

A visibly shocked Mutharika watched in disbelief as the university’s former chaplain the Reverend Douglas Chipofya of the CCAP Synod of Livingstonia prayed for an end to the education woes, asking God to intervene immediately.

“Let me respond to the prayer. My responsibility is to protect this nation and its cultures,” said the charged Mutharika, who in his prepared tactically ignored the woes that brought lessons in the two Unima colleges to a standstill for nearly two years.

During the 2017 Independence Day celebrations at Mzuzu Stadium, Mutharika also ‘answered’ a prayer by the synod’s ex-cleric Reverend Maurice Munthali who lamented poor infrastructure and the lack of sustainable development plans to govern Malawi’s successive leaders.

Now, whether it was divine prayers or sheer luck that influenced PAC’s U-turn on its shameful rejection of Chizuma as the next ACB boss is the topic for another day. But many have suggested that power, corruption and public interest potentially influenced both decisions by PAC which could have been a sabotage plot gone wrong.

Hon. Folks, I support suggestions that perhaps as a nation we should not disregard the controversy surrounding Chizuma’s rejection and confirmation. It must be investigated and because there are obviously many dots that do not add up in the entire fairy-tale.

Of course, memories are still fresh that not long ago one lawmaker who was also a member of this committee was implicated in a scandal in which she allegedly solicited a K2 million bribe from a candidate vying for the position of director in the Office of the Director of Public Officers’ Declarations.

This good candidate, who refused to be engaged in corrupt acts, then reported the matter to PAC and the lawmaker in question was removed from the panel.

This is certainly a classic example of abuse of entrusted power for private gain and this is why our fight against corruption must also target Parliament, where some legislators have previously been implicated in a variety of fraudulent cases but they continue to walk scot free for reasons only they know.

Exposing corruption and holding the corrupt to account can only happen if we understand the way corruption works and the systems that enable it, including those that are established by the Constitution of the Republic.

It is no longer a secret that corruption erodes trust, weakens democracy, hampers economic development and further exacerbates inequality, poverty and social divisions among citizens of a country.

That is why Malawi needs to face corruption head on despite coordinated attacks and intimidation that continues to fight back efforts by the leadership and anti-graft agencies to uproot the vice in both the public and private sector.

Corruption truly fights back in different forms but in the end Malawians have good reasons to be fed up with some politicians who are clearly bent on frustrating this country from moving forward.